


and I hope that you remember me

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e08 The Well, F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: “I’m not your therapist, kid. The memories are yours, always have been. The staff just brings them to the surface, same as all the rest.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "‘i thought you were dead, but you’re not and i can’t believe it’ sex." This is ... really not what the prompter had in mind.
> 
> Title from "I See Fire" from one of The Hobbit soundtracks. (I can't remember which.)

Grant’s hand wraps tight around Randolph’s arm before the man can walk away. There’s a moment (tense, drawn out) where the unassuming professor looks every inch the battle-hardened warrior. His eyes move from Grant’s hand up to his face in silent question. Grant doesn’t let go.

“What about the memories?” he asks. If the rage is gonna be with him for the rest of his life, maybe there’s a silver lining that he won’t be driven _fucking insane_ by the visions he can’t keep out of his head.

Randolph shrugs, both out of his hold and in answer. “I’m not your therapist, kid. The memories are yours, always have been. The staff just brings them to the surface, same as all the rest.”

Grant watches him go and thinks, _he’s wrong_. The staff must work differently for humans. The memories of Christian and the well, sure, those are all him, but the rest? They’re not- Those don’t make any _sense_.

Later, for instance, when Grant’s tearing through the extremists in the monastery, his mind goes somewhere else. A church. But not a church, not anymore. Its holy symbols twisted and broken, turned into blasphemous abominations. And instead of priests, soldiers, hovering in the shadows, speaking words that should have been lost to the ages.

There was rage like this then. And pain too. So great it tore him apart until there was nothing left but dust.

Grant falls to his knees. The section of the staff he’s holding slips from his numb fingers. Randolph is wrong, he thinks again while Skye rushes to his side. He has to be.

He lifts his eyes to take in the others, see that they’re all right. May is watching warily, ready to put him down if the staff pushes him too far. Coulson’s bent over Randolph, barely sparing a glance for Grant once he knows he’s survived the fight. Fitz is with him, and Simmons-

She’s watching him. She’s pale.

He looks away, not wanting to see her fear.

A new surge of extremists saves him the urge to look at her again, and May saves him from having to fight them.

After, he can’t quite bring himself to ask what she saw, so he asks how she handled it. He only held a third of the staff and he’s still having trouble not inching away from the shadows and the men he imagines he can see in them.

“I see it everyday,” she says.

If that means she isn’t seeing the occult symbols and creepy not-priests, he’s not sure he wants to know. And if that means she _is_ and she sees _that_ everyday, he _really_ doesn’t wanna know.

He makes it through clean-up and debriefs in a daze. The line of prisoners being led out reminds him of men bound together by chains around their ankles, marching barefoot through early morning frost to a firing squad. The hole in Randolph’s chest reminds him of a soldier with glassy eyes, rifle still clutched so tight in his hands that his fingers had to be broken to salvage it before he was carted off the field with the rest of the dead.

Grant’s never seen either of those things before.

He heads straight for the bar when Coulson releases them for the night. He has some pretty firm plans to get blackout drunk. Maybe that’ll put a stop to this.

Skye makes another attempt at talking to him, but all he sees when he looks at her is a woman crying silently while soldiers force her past the dead bodies of her neighbors.

Not long after she leaves him to it, he decides his room would be better. Closed space. Controlled. No chance of a stray look at some stranger making him see … something. And there’s a minibar and a bill SHIELD’s footing.

He downs his drink, pushes away from the bar, and makes to leave.

Simmons is sitting at one of the tables. Looks like she’s been there for a while, probably watching him the whole time. He must be in pretty damn bad shape if he didn’t notice.

But that’s a fleeting thought because when his eyes lock with hers he’s somewhere else again. The air smells like sweat and blood and the bloat of decaying flesh. Men still in the process of dying groan or cry or yell for help that’ll never come. One makes pathetic, pleading noises as Simmons (not Simmons) runs gentle fingers down his cheek. He reaches for her while she stands. Graceful. Regal. Like a princess picking flowers in a meadow, not a nameless woman picking her way across a bloody battlefield. Their eyes meet. She smiles. Something in Grant smiles back.

Simmons (the real Simmons this time) leaves the bar. Grant’s feet follow her without his direction.

The hotel’s lobby is brighter than the bar, but still done in the same warm woods. He passes a leafy frond, just misses a businessman on his phone, dodges around a column when he nearly loses her. Not that he can, the place isn’t all that big and she’s obviously heading for the elevators.

But he sees white, marble columns stained with blood. She catches his eye around one and then runs to hide behind another. He reaches, feels delicate, skin-warmed cloth slip through his fingers. Her laughter mixes with the clang of sword and stone and flesh. He runs. His hands grip her thin shoulders, spin her, throw her into the wall of the elevator so he can hold her there with his body.

He breathes heavily. He tries to focus on her face, use it to get a hold of himself, get his emotions and his thoughts back under control. Only the fear he expects to see isn’t there. Her eyes are wide and her open mouth trembles, but it’s in anticipation.

Her teeth drag at her lip; he nearly groans. Her hand comes up to touch his cheek.

“You remember,” she says softly. “Tell me you remember too.”

Yes, he wants to say if only it means she’ll keep touching him.

But she didn’t touch the staff. (Did she?) Does that mean what’s happening to him isn’t connected to it?

She moves against him, setting every nerve in his body on fire. Dimly he’s aware the elevator doors have closed but they’re not going anywhere. 

She leans in like she’s gonna kiss his jaw. His breath catches. “Ari,” she breathes, warm breath pouring over his skin.

He hears it like an echo. Her voice moans the word (the name; _his_ name) while he moves inside her. She’s clothed only in sunlight, her hair a halo around her. Death never looked so lovely.

He catches her face in his hands. The bones of her jaw fit perfectly in his palms and his thumbs slide over her cheeks. “Mora,” he sighs, the name coming to him from somewhere far away.

Simmons’ whole face lights up, and he can feel her relax against him. “You remember,” she sighs.

He does. Not all of it, not yet, but he remembers them. Death and War, inexorably linked. Him, dogging mankind’s heels, urging them to stand, to fight, to grow beyond their peacetime dreams. And her, always hovering, always picking up the toys he discarded. And later, the presents he dropped in her path.

He tears his eyes away from her face just long enough to thumb the button for their floor. And then he kisses her. He’s drowning long before he carries her into his room.

Every sweep of her tongue brings to mind a dozen other kisses. Every sound she makes reminds him of hundreds more. Every brush of her skin against his is a thousand times better for all the lingering touches that came before.

They may not be physically what they were, but he still knows her. He knows how to make her keen and moan and beg. A goddess desperate for the smallest flick of his fingers.

And she knows him. She knows the way to touch him and hold him, the words to speak in long-dead tongues he’s only just relearning as she speaks them.

When they’re both spent and buzzing with reignited passion, he holds her close. He can’t remember yet the last time he held her, but he can remember the after. Two world wars weren’t enough to sate his bloodlust when she was stolen from him, and it took HYDRA’s dabbling in black magic to finally put a stop to his rampaging.

That’s something to consider. The same people who literally tore him out of existence somehow secured his allegiance when he didn’t know who he was.

But that’s for later. Right now, there’s her.

It’s dark. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights when he fumbled their way in. It was half desperation and half practicality. They’re both different now; this was easier to do without being constantly reminded of who they aren’t anymore. But now, with a few hours left before they have to go back to the Bus and the team, is the time to talk about it.

He drags his fingertips up her spine. “How long have you remembered?”

Her cheek turns on his chest so she can press kisses between his ribs. He would kill for the warmth of her lips against his skin. (He has.) “The Chitauri virus started it,” she says, and he remembers she was always fond of pestilence.

There was a time, when mankind began to understand her invisible soldiers, that he feared her fascination with their study might steal her from him. “What better place for a little infection than a battlefield?” she asked then and soothed his nerves with heated kisses.

“And then I died,” she says in the here and now, voice bitter. “Again. When I woke up I could remember who I was. Who you were.” She lifts her face and then her whole body, moving to straddle him.

She stares down at him, lit up by the moon and the streetlights outside. It’s not sunlight, not even close, but she’s as beautiful as she ever was.

“What’s happened to us?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He sits up, bringing their chests together while he tangles his fingers in her hair. “But we’ll find out. Together.”

She twists to press her face into his neck. Her arms wrap around his waist, and she fits perfectly against him, even as she is now. “Don’t lose me again.”

The memory of what happened to her hovers on the edges of his thoughts, a dark spot he’s afraid to go near. He pulls her close and mentally shoves the memory away. That’s for another time.

“Oh, I won’t,” he promises. He’ll crack the Earth in two if that’s what it takes to keep her, humanity be damned. He’s never letting her go again.

 


End file.
